07. Judas Priest Sad Wings of Destiny 1976 (Gull)
Heavy Metal
Technical precision & operatic wails, metal is truly here!
Overview
So far I’ve seldom labelled albums as being ‘heavy metal’ save those for bands like Black Sabbath where the future characteristics of the genre had been laid or with a band like Sir Lord Baltimore that had relied on brute force over any type of finesse to get their sound across. Most other bands in one way or another had kept a blues aspect whether it was obvious or watered down and whether they procured a hard or melodic approach to their sound. Judas Priest by the time of their second album, would go in for rapid and potent sound that would soon become synonymous with everything that we now regard as being heavy metal. If Black Sabbath was the ‘father’ figure of heavy metal and the likes of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple his fearsome but different brothers, then Judas Priest were certainly the eldest son of that Black Sabbath father! Judas Priest would go on to rank as one of the most important bands in all metaldom, quite simply because they were there at its crucial point of inception around the middle period of the 1970s, where the last vestiges of the blues were being erased and the overall sound of what would soon characterize heavy metal was taking shape. This sound would now take on a more rapid tempo, have less syncopation, more brute force and have a greater overall metallic feel, along with offering a more theatrical vocal approach hence Rob Halford can be seen as the archetypal metal vocalist. On the
Sad Wings of Destiny, Judas Priest would serve us up a slice of post-Black Sabbath metal and go onto spearhead the way for the future New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) which would explode on the scene in 1980 and firmly establish heavy metal once and for all! It wasn’t always this way for Judas Priest though, as on their first effort
Rocka Rolla they had given us a fairly terrible interpretation of a Black Sabbath style sound in an unfocused mishmash of a debut album, it had also been produced by old Sabbath producer Roger Bain thus linking the two bands. In fact Judas Priest had another thing besides the style of the debut album in common with Black Sabbath and that was they also hailed from Birmingham and were another product like Black Sabbath of growing up in inner-city decline of a late 1960s Birmingham and in the process giving us Birmingham as the spiritual home of heavy metal. Another point of note too, was that Judas Priest would also give us the classic twin guitar attack of K.K Downing and Glenn Tipton, which despite not being overly new to the heavy genre, having already been delivered to us in the UK by the likes of Wishbone Ash, Stray and Thin Lizzy amongst others, it would quickly become a backbone of both the Judas Priest and future metal sound. Finally if anybody is not convinced of the importance of this album on metal, then just check out that album cover………. as it’s basically screaming metal at us, this was an album gave us metal signed and sealed!
Rob Halford- Vocals
K.K Downing- Guitar
Glenn Tipton- Guitar
Ian Hill- Bass
Alan Moore- Drums
Production- Jeffrey Calvert +
Album
Victim of Changes- A near 8 minute metal classic with its tight-chugging riffs, the song starts off as a trademark metal classic to be and is dominated by the operatic overtones of Rob Halford, before the songs descends into a sludgy pounding middle section that matches Black Sabbath at their best, before embarking on a more mellow dominated vocal section and then onto another heavy section and some of Rob Halford’s best vocal work to date!
The Ripper- A song full of concise riffing and another classic song in the making here about the infamous London serial killer, and we have some classic proto-speed metal on show here.
Dream Deceiver- A ballad with proggy and space rock touches as the band slow things down a bit and they keep a steady beat throughout the song, and the song also gives Rob Halford a chance to broaden his vocal range on the album and a killer of a track. The song then leads into….
Deceiver- The pace picks up here and the song also borrows quite a bit from “The Ripper” along with sounding quite similar to Black Sabbath at times, before leaving us with an acoustic outro and is another strong song.
Prelude- A 2 minute piano based instrumental written and performed by Glenn Tipton to start the second side of the album.
Tyrant- Another pacey effort about not very pleasant dictators and again is highlighted with concise playing by the band.
Genocide- Following on from the previous subject matter, but this time about atrocities rather than dictators and the voice section in the middle of the song does it no real favours.
Epitaph- Another short track written Glenn Tipton and sounds more like a Queen song than anything else, it’s not bad but doesn’t really belong here.
Island of Domination- A stellar workout by the band and one of the strongest tracks on the album to close the album down.
Verdict
So how does this landmark metal album really size up? Well from the word go the band had pulled out all the stops and were firmly looking to quickly subdue the listener, as all the key aspects of the band’s sound are in place from the opening song. The classic album opener “Victim of Changes” is based around what would be the band’s trademark tight-riffing, which would propel the song along and then give us an impressive change of pace within the song for an almost glorious eight minutes and of course the cherry on top is provided by Rob Halford’s operatic wail. The band’s soon to be much publicized infamous dark vocal overtones are quickly evident here as well on choicy cuts such as “The Ripper”. In fact songs like “The Ripper” and “Tyrant” with their speed and concise playing are certainly nods in the direction of the future NWOBHM, whilst the operatic vocals of Rob Halford on “Victim of Changes” and “Dream Deceiver” are early shouts in the direction of the future power metal movement. Now speaking of Rob Halford, the
Sad Wings of Destiny album had ushered in a true heavyweight in the vocal arena and his multi-octave vocal style was born to sing this style of music. Whilst the likes of Robert Plant, Ian Gillan and say Phil Mogg were vocalists that would inspire future frontmen, Rob Halford could be seen as a vocalist that would inspire frontmen to sing metal and nothing else! Taking all the above points in mind, the
Sad Wings of Destiny meets the criteria of being a true and vital early heavy metal listen. On the downside though the album falls short of being a classic, as it suffers from one serious flaw that plagues it and that is the album is somewhat top heavy in that its best material tends to come on the first half of the album and with a number of the later tracks falling short quality wise. Tracks such as “Tyrant” are using riffs already having been pushed earlier on the album, its follow-up track “Genocide” harks back to the lack of focus shown on their debut album and “Epitaph” was an experiment that should have been left off and it sounds more like a Queen song than anything else. Luckily the b-side is salvaged by its superb closer the “Island of Domination”. All in all and despite a few flaws here and there, the
Sad Wings of Destiny is still lauded as one of the pivotal metal releases of the 1970s and is certainly a treasured album amongst old-school metalheads. Taken in the context of its time and the timeless appeal of its best tracks, the album is worthy of any record collection.